What makes the owner of a rural property which comes with extensive grounds sell up for at least £100,000 less than the potential asking price?
Tony Corden has recently sold his home in Machynlleth, in Powys, for just £240,000. The property, Bryn Tyrnol, comprises a 19th century mansion house which stands in extensive grounds and includes a stream, woodland, orchard and outbuildings. A colony of bats lives in the attic.
For many, this is the rural idyll – and that includes the group of cooperative members who live in the house.
What Mr Corden didn’t want when he sold the property for such a low asking price was for it to become a ‘palatial’ second home, so instead he close to sell it to his “bunch of really nice lodgers”. He freely admits that quite many people would think he was “crazy”. As a psychiatric nurse, he’s well qualified to know!
Mr Corden was himself a lodger at the house for a number of years and bought it in the early 2000s. Now retired, he has moved to Spain but has put one proviso in place for those who now own it. He founded the Latin American music festival, El Sueño Existe, on the site in 2002, with the vision to create a musical and cultural event hub with musicians, speakers, films, poets, dancers, workshops and concerts. There is also theme of socialist politics.
Mr Corden wanted to continue the ‘creative and progressive spirit’ of the house after he moved abroad, so the catch for the cooperative members, who purchased the property as a housing cooperative, is that they must vacate their home for a short while during future summer festivals.
The former lodgers now share the ownership and management of the house, something few of them would be able to afford as individuals. They were assisted in creating a financial plan and attracting investors by the cooperative organisation, Cwmpas, and committed to buying Bryn Tyrnol with a 40 year mortgage.
Some of the cooperative members are musicians and artists themselves and, despite having left their own rooms for four days, have camped nearby and enjoyed the festival, sometimes making friends with the people who have stayed in their rooms.